


Solar Prominence

by Silmariën (Starrie_Wolf), Starrie_Wolf



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - BDSM, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Special Operations, Evil Galra Inc., Ex-Pararescue Shiro, Implied Human Experimentation, M/M, Mad scientist Haggar, Non-binary Pidge Holt, Switch/Dom!Shiro, Team as Family, dom!Keith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:41:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21939133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starrie_Wolf/pseuds/Silmari%C3%ABn, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starrie_Wolf/pseuds/Starrie_Wolf
Summary: Keith. Code name: Black Lion. Leader of VOLTRON, an independent task force charged with one mission: to find out the truth behind Galra Inc.Three years ago, Keith had everything. A valedictorian position waiting for him at graduation, a partner who adored him, and a job waiting for him after graduation, doing what he loved with who he loved.Then Operation: KERBEROS happened.
Relationships: Allura & Hunk & Keith & Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt & Shiro, Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 43
Collections: Sheith Big Bang 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> LOL at my assigned posting date. Merry Christmas everyone!
> 
> With thanks to the tireless Sheith Big Bang 2019 mods, as usual, and even more thanks to my artist, voidslantern! Please do [retweet their art at this link here](https://twitter.com/voidslantern/status/1209552860557578241).
> 
> Chapter 3 is NSFW. All other chapters are rated Teen.

“All systems clear. We are a go.”

“Copy that.”

Keith tucked his communicator back into his belt, readying his bayard. He could feel Lance doing the same behind him, and he’d never tell the other man that, but it was reassuring to know someone like him had his back.

“ _Go_.”

He kicked the door down and immediately dropped to the floor, both to make himself a smaller target and to give Lance room to aim. No matter what Lance liked to say about his aim and Keith’s relative height, friendly fire was _not_ the way Keith wanted to go.

“Clear!” barked Lance.

Keith rose cautiously from his crouch, hand gripping his bayard tightly. He didn’t forget to give the ceiling a careful once-over, and then the floor for any nasty surprises, before he set foot in the warehouse. If only Shiro was here to see him now…

_Focus. Patience._

The warehouse looked exactly as advertised on the tin at first sight, nothing to remotely suggest it could’ve been a secret facility dedicated to illegal human experimentation.

“Black Paladin to Green.”

“This is Green.” Even without the announcement, Keith could hear the ubiquitous clacking of keys as Pidge’s hands flew over their keyboards.

“If you were an evil scientist, where would you hide the entrance to your top-secret labs?”

“I’m hurt, Black – do you mean I don’t count as an evil scientist yet?”

Lance barked a laugh that Keith heard in perfect stereo, both through his ear-piece and from behind him.

“But seriously?” Pidge asked rhetorically, sobering just as fast. “I’ll install a mechanism for a secret basement somewhere in plain sight. Just watch out for traps along the way.”

“Got it.”

“And Blue, you’re almost on top of Black, try not to shoot each other.”

“Copy that.” He could hear Allura’s amusement as she rounded a corner and very nearly walked straight into Keith.

Keith breathed in deeply, forcing his fingers to unclench from the hilt of his bayard, one by one.

They were so close.

Allura gave him a brisk nod and headed down a different corridor, Hunk trailing behind her.

He was so close –

 _Focus_.

“I don’t see anything like a secret trapdoor,” reported Hunk. “This whole place is empty, like they knew we were coming. _Did_ they know we were coming? Maybe Galra Inc. already packed up and left –”

“Yellow,” warned Lance, before Keith could bark a caustic retort.

He’d never tell Lance, of course – wouldn’t do to give the idiot an even bigger head, gods – but he was glad Lance was the one watching his back. He couldn’t think of anyone better – well. Other than Shiro, of course.

_Don’t think about it._

The corridors echoed eerily, completely devoid of any personnel, exactly as their sources had suggested they would be. Keith’s fingers twitched on his bayard, resisting the urge to tap on the hilt of his sword for lack of _something_ to do –

The solid expanse of white walls gave way, abruptly, to grey steel, and the transition was so jarring that Keith paused in his footsteps.

Lance wasn’t expecting him to stop so suddenly, judging from the way he ran straight into Keith’s back, and the next few moments were a blur of Keith’s sword against Lance’s assault rifle as they both fought to calm their hyperactive reflexes.

“Guys? What’s going on?”

Keith couldn’t spare the breath to explain to Hunk – Lance was _good_ , of course he had to be, to be selected for the VOLTRON task force – that it was just a case of them accidentally setting each other off, and muscle memory coming into play.

“Green, locate them!”

“No need, just a bit of friendly fire,” Lance panted, as they finally disengaged. His eyes were wide. “Dude, what the _hell_?”

Keith winced, which was about as much of an apology Lance would get at this time, with Keith’s nerves still overwrought. Lance shook his hair out of his eyes, swinging his rifle back up over his shoulder. “ _Friend_ ,” he stressed, waving a hand down over his body. “Not food!”

Before Keith could begin to comment on the illogicality of that statement (at no point did he experience or exhibit any cannibalistic tendencies), his earpiece crackled to life again.

“Right, I’m in the mainframe,” Pidge reported. “Black, Red, my locators indicate you’re now in a section not on the blueprints for this building, so I’d say you’re on the right track.”

“Problem is,” they continued as Keith started walking again, in a faster clip than before now that he had – figuratively speaking – the green light. The earpiece crackled. “… magnetic interference…” Pidge warned, over the sound of pounding footsteps as Lance hurried to catch up, “… dark… I repeat, going… comms… wait –”

“I don’t think he’s waiting!” Lance yelled back into the static, but Keith couldn’t care about that right now, not when every fibre of his very being was shrieking at him, over and over again, that this was it, this had to be _it_ , three years of searching and he was finally –

The first room was empty.

As was the second they kicked open, and the third.

The fourth room held two corpses, strapped to what looked at first glance to be medical gurneys.

They hadn’t been dead long; the skin and hair were still intact enough for Keith to identify, at a single glance, that they weren’t any of the people he was searching for.

“Son of a gun!” yelped Lance, coming to a dead halt, and Keith was surprised enough to bark out a laugh.

Still, this was the first time in three years that VOLTRON had found enough of a lead that Galra Inc. hadn’t managed to wipe every trace of wrongdoing before they got there.

But if they were killing off their prisoners…

Keith broke into a full run, stuffing his bayard back into his belt.

Doors flashed past – nondescript rooms, set into the walls at intervals as regular as clockwork – some empty, some occupied, but not a hint of life in any of them.

At some point, he passed by a hall set up like a _gladiator arena_. He was sure he’d feel sick once he was in his right mind, but right now?

Right now, there was only one thing that mattered.

 _Something_ was definitely calling to him, making Keith clutch at his chest, pushing his body harder, faster, to the point where his legs should be _screaming_ , but he couldn’t feel anything, nothing but the compulsion to –

The door ahead appeared as if out of nowhere, a shining beacon of rust-coloured metal in the never-ending sea of drab grey walls.

His bayard was in his hands before he registered the impulse to draw his weapon, slicing through the thick chains and wrought-iron lock wrapped around the handle. Even unlocked, the door took several kicks to open, as though someone had gone through some effort to jam the door, like – like they didn’t want anyone to see what was on the other side.

There was someone lying naked on a medical gurney, just like in many of the other rooms.

But the difference was, Keith could clearly see his chest rising and falling, even from the door.

He was alive.

Keith cupped his cheek, turning his head just to be sure, but there was no mistake, it was –

The man underneath his hands groaned, eyes fluttering open, and it might possibly be the most beautiful thing Keith had ever had the honour of witnessing.

“Keith?” he croaked, with a beatific little smile.

“Shiro,” Keith couldn’t help but answer, in that same soft tone.

“– ack? Black, you bloody bastard, _wait for me_ –” Lance’s shouts cut off suddenly, and when he spoke again it was in a far softer tone. “Holy crap. Is he –”

“Alive,” Keith grunted, enjoying the taste of the word on his tongue. “He’s _alive_ ,” he repeated, marvelling at the words, something he’d almost give up hope of saying ever again.

It _had_ been three years after all.

Several quick hacks with his sword freed Shiro from his restraints, metal shackles clattering to the ground – was that a _prosthetic arm_? No matter – but all Shiro did was lie there, quiescent, that little trusting smile still on his face.

Lance stepped up beside them. “Great. So the one person we find alive, and he’s a Sub who imprinted on the first Dom he’s seen in… however long it’s been.”

Keith could’ve corrected him – but, well. Shiro’s pupils had been fully blown, the clear sign of someone on the cusp of subdrop, so he couldn’t actually be _sure_ that Shiro had recognised him as Keith, or had seen a Dom and assumed it was Keith.

The Garrison had trained them all on how Submissives behaved after a long period of captivity, and imprinting on the first Dom – the first sign of _safety_ they saw – was one of them. Hallucinations and confusion were, sadly, also normal. Shiro wasn’t a full Submissive – was more Dominant than Submissive, honestly – but who knew what three years with the Galra had done to him?

“Let’s just get him out of here,” he responded, in lieu of a better answer. Either way, he was _not_ letting Shiro out of his sight.

“Man, I wonder what _happened_ to him,” Lance nattered on as they heaved Shiro’s arm over a shoulder each, heedless of Keith’s stare. “Are you seeing these scars?”

Yeah, yeah Keith saw them all right.

As he did the gladiator arena, the bulking muscles Shiro didn’t used to have, the arm he was now missing – replaced by a prosthetic arm, yes, but the last time Keith saw him, Shiro had two flesh-based arms.

There was something dark roiling in the pit of Keith’s belly, and only Shiro’s weight against his shoulder kept him tethered.

Shiro was awake, at least; there was no way Lance and Keith were getting him out of the labs without at least his _partial_ cooperation, but his eyes were half-closed, and he was moving like someone in a daze – or a Submissive in full subdrop, where the world was hazy and dreamy all around you.

Speaking of subdrop, Keith vaguely remembered something about making sure the Submissive was warm…

He shrugged off his jacket, draping it over Shiro’s shoulders in the hope of either helping to preserve his modesty even a little bit, or getting him warmed up, but –

“Dude, it looks like a freaking crop top on him.”

Keith sighed. Lance had a point. Even before the – _before_ , Shiro had been a good head taller and far more muscular than Keith had been. Leading VOLTRON might’ve bulked Keith up a little bit, but he was never going to be able to match Shiro, not when – did the Galra pump him full of steroids or something? Shiro worked out, just like everyone else did in the military academy, but he didn’t remember Shiro being _that_ ripped.

Shiro didn’t seem to mind the far-too-small jacket, humming vacantly as he snuffled happily at Keith’s hair. This part wasn’t new, at least. Shiro had always liked Keith’s hair; liked playing with it in the mornings, liked ruffling it whenever Keith did something he considered spectacular, liked tangling a hand in it when Keith was going down on him –

 _Focus, goddamn it_. They weren’t out of the woods yet.

The earpiece crackling back to life, thankfully, stalled the rest of whatever Lance had been meaning to say.

“Guys?” Lance yelled into the comms, making Shiro flinch. “Sorry,” he added in a whisper, before Keith could reprimand him. “Sorry, uh, we have a Code Pink?”

Well, at least that shut Pidge, Hunk and Allura all up.

“A Code Pink?” asked Allura, and Keith could almost see her clapping her hands together. “Oh, how wonderful!”

The section she and Hunk searched must’ve been filled with only dead bodies.

There was an audible pause before the sound of the keyboard started again. “Does he – or she, or they – remember anything?” demanded Pidge.

“Not sure,” Lance admitted, before Keith could say anything. “By the time we got there –” casually leaving out the part where Keith had totally rushed ahead of him “– he was already unconscious, and when Keith touched him he went straight into subdrop.”

“Subdrop,” repeated Allura, tone frozen. Her Dominant instincts must be rearing their ugly head.

“Shit.” Hunk was a little more eloquent. “I’m – I’m grabbing a shock blanket from the kit, meet you guys back at the van. No, wait, you’ll be nearer the car. I’ll run over. Yeah.”

“Copy that.”

The rest of the trip to the getaway car was uneventful, the Galra having clearly deserted this base like they did all the rest.

Hunk was, indeed, waiting at the car like he said he would be, holding one of the neon orange shock blankets they’d never had cause to use before but came in every first aid kit. His eyes went, if possible, even rounder when he caught sight of Shiro. Being the only one of them who was a full Submissive, Hunk’s nurturing instincts were often what a battle-weary team like that sorely needed.

“Oh my god,” he was saying, but his hands were steady where they were wrapping the blanket around Shiro with quick, practised motions. “Look at him, what did they _do_ to him!”

“We don’t know,” Lance repeated.

“Nothing good,” Keith said at the same time.

Hunk forced a smile onto his face, tucking the edge of the shock blanket in. “Right.” He patted Shiro’s arm one more time, stepping back. “He can’t go in the van, there isn’t enough space in there for him with Pidge’s equipment in the back, so he’s going to have to go in the car. Keith, since he’s imprinted on you, you’ll have to go in the backseat with him.”

Wordlessly, Keith tossed Lance the keys.

“Wow,” Lance muttered reverently. “ _Wow_. Will you look at that, _the_ Black Paladin giving me the car keys? Looks like we _do_ know what it takes for him to give up control after all. Who’s got the money on ‘injured Submissive’?”

“Hey,” Hunk protested, helping Keith manoeuvre Shiro into the backseat. “That’s harsh, man. Kee – uh, Black’s just being a regular Dom.”

“Yeah, but since when has Black been _normal_?” argued Lance, strapping himself into the driver’s seat. “I mean, have you _seen_ him? He works all the time, goes home sometimes – sometimes I come in, and I find him sleeping on the couch like the crazy workaholic he is – have you even washed your hair this week, man? And even if he does go home, he, like, works from home – you know, sending emails at three in the bloody morning? Or, like, remember last month when we went out for drinks, and that cute Submissive hit on him for half an hour and he didn’t even _notice_?”

“Maybe he’s just not into girls,” Hunks said, reasonably, glancing over his shoulder in a way that was probably meant to be subtle. Keith pretended not to notice, busy with arranging Shiro into a more comfortable position while making sure everyone had their seatbelts on.

He did _not_ want to get into a car chase without a seatbelt on. Once was enough.

Shiro had always loved cuddling during the rare times he wanted to drop. Keith hoped that was still true. He scritched the back of Shiro’s neck, something else Shiro used to like, and was rewarded with a throaty purr.

There was a long silence in the front of the car.

“Seriously?” demanded Lance, banging on the steering wheel. “You – you never pick anyone up, why are you so good at this?”

“Just drive,” Keith muttered tiredly.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is rated T, but warning for delving into Shiro's captivity.

The VOLTRON task force headquarters wasn’t anywhere fancy, not like the alphabet agencies. They operated out of a run-of-the-mill office building, one of those that were never completed, after the real estate bubble burst and Altea Corp.’s CEO mysteriously vanished.

However, it did mean that Allura owned the whole building, and every building around it for miles. There was no safer place for them.

Hunk helped Keith heave Shiro out of the car, while Lance took the car to its usual garage. Pidge and Allura were already in front of the entrance, waiting for them.

Before he could bring Shiro further into the building, Pidge blocked his way.

“I want to talk to him.”

Keith stared at her.

“I’ve waited _years_ ,” they insisted, their eyes boring a hole into Keith’s forehead. “If he has any information at all –”

“Pidge,” Hunk interrupted gently, shrugging off their glare like water off a duck’s back. “Look at him. He’s so far in subdrop he can’t remember his own name. At least let him wake up first.”

Pidge’s fists clenched by their sides, but they relented with a harsh, “Fine!”

Allura shook her head, strands of her elegant silver hair escaping the severe bun that she’d put it up in for the mission. “There’s a few subdrop recovery rooms on the second level, we can put him in one of those.”

A subdrop recovery room was the staple of any modern building, after the Submissive rights movement several centuries ago, when Submissives were finally allowed to work non-traditional jobs.

Shiro sniffled happily as they manoeuvred him into the padded room, all soothing mint green walls and soft cushions lining every surface. All the rooms were routinely cleaned by the bots, so at least everything was clean, if nothing else. Keith bit his lip, settling Shiro down on the biggest cushion, trying to dredge up what Shiro had liked from so long ago, memories he’d long since repressed –

_Focus, focus._

Keith blinked.

He was fingering a soft spool of fabric, the cloth slipping through his hands, so light on his callouses that he barely felt it.

Yes, this would do.

He deliberately turned his attention away from the horrific scars slashed across Shiro’s torso, draping the first duvet over Shiro’s naked body, and then another like it, selecting only things that would feel soothing against bare skin, things that won’t scratch at all.

Shiro hadn’t been good at making nests, either, but that didn’t matter. Keith was here now, and this clumsy thing might be the only thing he could do but it was… it was better than…

An image of Shiro back on that medical gurney, like a discarded science experiment, a broken toy, flashed across his mind.

Keith focused on breathing.

In. Out.

Shiro needed to rest. And he needed to debrief his team. Everything else could wait.

Pidge was outside the subdrop room when he came out, and Keith instinctively barred the door, blocking their way. “Let him rest.”

They shook their head, messy curls flying everywhere, and blew out a sigh of frustration. “Fine,” they agreed grudgingly, turning to head up to Team VOLTRON’s main office. “But the moment he wakes up –”

“I’ll let you know,” Keith promised. As much as he would love to hide Shiro from the world, make sure he was safe and cared for, he knew why Pidge was doing this. He wasn’t going to begrudge them the chance to figure out where their father and brother were kept, not when he would’ve done the same if it had been Matt or Sam Holt lying on that gurney.

Arms wrapped around his waist, a face pressed into the crook of his shoulder, and Keith was so startled he almost dropped what he was holding. One of the arms was freezing cold, so this was… Shiro?

Keith tugged at his arm, trying to extricate himself, but Shiro just made a high-pitched whine and tried to cuddle closer. They were pressed so close that Keith could scent the distress pheromones he was giving off, and the thought that he was causing Shiro any more pain – he couldn’t do it.

He didn’t want to let Shiro go again. If Shiro would rather stay with Keith than a subdrop room, Keith was more than happy to let him.

Keith headed back to the main office upstairs, Shiro trailing behind him like that, head nestled against Keith’s neck. His legs were clearly working, and just as muscled as the rest of him, no sign of atrophy anywhere. It made Keith sick to think about what Galra Inc. might have wanted him for.

Not military secrets, that was certain. Shiro didn’t look like any of the tortured prisoners Keith had rescued in other military operations, and he had no other special talents Keith could think of.

There had been a gladiator arena.

_Not thinking about it._

Shiro padded behind him, bare feet whispering over the marble floor, and Keith made a detour to his workstation so that he could find one of his hoodies to wrap Shiro in. They used to belong to Shiro, which meant they were a little big on Keith, but he had liked the reminder of comfort. Even these were a little small on Shiro, which proved Keith’s memories right: he _had_ bulked up, somehow.

He tried not to notice how Shiro nuzzled into the soft fabric. It only smelled like Keith nowadays, which meant –

“Keith,” greeted Allura with some surprise, her gaze fixed on the fixture attached to his back, although she made no comment. If Shiro hadn’t wanted to be alone in the subdrop room… it would be cruel to separate a Submissive from the sense of _safety_ he’d imprinted on.

Keith wanted to tell them that it wasn’t like that, but he couldn’t even be sure _himself_ that it wasn’t like that. Shiro hadn’t said anything beyond that first hopeful, confused, _Keith?_ , so Keith had no idea what his mental state was like, whether he had recognised Keith or been hallucinating.

Allura sat down, biting her lip lightly. “I want to run a search to start tracking down his next-of-kin,” she begins, glancing over at Shiro. “But I’m going to need you to rouse him out of the subdrop so that I can ask him some questions.”

Keith could tell them –

He hesitated. His knowledge was three years out of date, and Shiro might not want – he didn’t know if anything had changed.

He wanted to know.

Shiro nuzzled trustingly into the crook of his neck, and Keith made his decision.

“Hey, babe,” he crooned, stroking his knuckles over Shiro’s cheek, the only part of his face he could reach. “I need you to do something for me, okay?”

Shiro snuffled inquisitively. Keith kept his tone low and soft, aware of the eyes boring into him, the exaggerated looks of incredulity Lance was silently pantomiming to Hunk, but Shiro was far more important to him than what they thought of him. “I wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t important,” he promised, even though Shiro was probably too out of it to understand him, “but I really need you to – _wake up_.”

He barely put any force into his tone, making it more of a suggestion than a command, but Shiro made a sad noise of protest and slowly raised his head anyway.

Keith held himself still. He wanted to see the bleary way Shiro must surely be blinking, the glimmer of hope dawning in his eyes when he realised he was no longer a prisoner of Galra Inc., but Keith was still supporting half of Shiro’s body weight and he was loath to let go of that point of contact.

“Hello,” murmured Allura, keeping her tone just as soft and soothing as Keith had. “My name is Allura Altea, I’m a private investigator looking into Galra Inc.” She paused, like she was trying to make sure Shiro understood what she was saying. “Can you tell me your name?”

Shiro didn’t answer for a long moment.

 _Maybe he lost his memories_ , suggested a part of Keith.

Keith told it to shut up. Shiro was probably still half-under, and he was just processing the question.

“Takashi Shirogane.”

His heart leapt, thumping against his ribs like a wild thing, and only his military training kept him from shaking.

Allura typed it into her computer. She wasn’t connected to the mainframe at the moment – a security measure Pidge had implemented, to prevent hackers – so she could only search the national database for his files later.

Keith would just have to correct her spelling later. Shiro had adapted fine to the Westernisation of his name, but he stuck with the original Japanese spelling.

“Do you know how old you are – no,” she corrected herself, “what year were you born in?”

Good catch there, Keith had to admit. He doubted that Galra Inc. did things like celebrate birthdays or tell their prisoners how much time had passed.

There was another long pause, like Shiro was struggling to comprehend the question. His chin dropped back onto Keith’s shoulder, like he was sinking back down into subdrop. “Mmm… ask Keith?”

Keith froze.

Did Shiro – just –

Shiro readjusted his position to be more comfortable, slumping against his back. He seemed to be mostly asleep, but Keith could almost sense the look of concern Shiro was radiating into his back as the silence dragged on. “… Keith?” he asked, voice small.

And – nope. He wasn’t dealing with that right now.

Keith looked his shell-shocked team dead in the eyes, pretending he couldn’t feel Shiro pressing closer against him, as though he was a Submissive with the instincts to soothe his Dominant. Which was all wrong – since when did Shiro get all these Submissive instincts? Keith had definitely known his own damned heartmate’s dominance orientation, and it sure wasn’t Submissive-leaning.

“Takashi Shirogane,” he recited, like he was reading off a personnel file. “Age 27, orientation Switch, graduated valedictorian six years ago from the fight pilot division in the Galaxy Garrison, subsequently cross-trained in Pararescue. Declared KIA three years ago, after his squad went missing during a covert escort operation named KERBEROS.”

He remembered the day.

They didn’t even have the decency to inform Keith ahead of time, even though they had to have known he was one step away from being Shiro’s official heartmate. He had to find out from the television in the mess hall, from a news report recorded by some combat reporter, that Shiro wasn’t coming home.

_The sound of his tray crashing to the floor echoed in the tomb-like silence in the mess._

Shiro’s embrace was loosening, his body stiffening, and Keith was just about to turn around to ask him if he was okay when Shiro said, very quietly, “Three years?”

Right.

Keith gritted his teeth and addressed Allura instead, “You won’t need to search for his next-of-kin.” His fingers dug into his thigh. “You won’t have to,” he repeated, willing himself to ignore the absolute stillness behind him, “because you’re already talking to him.”

The quality of the silence felt different this time.

His team was gaping at him in shock, struck dumb by all these revelations he was flinging at them, but it was Shiro’s reaction Keith cared about.

“My – mother?”

Keith forced his throat to unstick. “She passed away last year,” he told the floor. Losing her only child so soon on the heels of her husband’s death had weakened Mrs Shirogane, and as the months passed with no hope of a miraculous rescue…

“I added her to the house shrine for your father,” he elaborated, at a loss of what to say. He didn’t believe in superstitions, but he had learnt the customs of Shiro’s people, back when they’d been discussing marriage. With her own son gone, it had seemed right for Keith to be the one to do it, knowing that Shiro would’ve wanted it.

Shiro’s breathing stuttered on an inhalation. “Thank you,” he eventually said.

Keith inhaled, held his breath, counted to three, and then exhaled.

 _Focus_.

“Shiro – we need to ask you some questions about the last three years.”

In the silence of the room, something pressed against Keith’s waist whirred to life. He looked down to see Shiro’s prosthetic arm – which he’d thought was a normal prosthetic, but normal prosthetics didn’t glow an eerie Galra purple.

There was a crash behind him, the comforting weight vanishing, and Keith spun around to see Shiro had half-collapsed onto the floor, an expression of stark terror on his face. “Shiro, babe, what –” he began, moving closer, wanting, _needing_ to soothe –

“Don’t – _stay away_!”

The force behind Shiro’s command was like a punch to the throat. Keith choked, hand coming up to grab at his neck, even though he knew the impact wasn’t physical. He… didn’t remember Shiro’s commands being this strong either.

Shiro _keened_ , body swaying madly like he was struggling against his instincts, warring between going to Keith and staying away, and the contradictions were tearing him apart.

Keith held up a hand. He didn’t know how it was possible, but his heart hurt even more than his throat did.

“Shiro,” he crooned, switching back to the soothing tone he used earlier, “let us help you.”

_Let me help you._

Shiro was actually trembling, his flesh arm folded over his metallic one like he was trying to hide it from view, eyes averted so that he didn’t have to look at it. “I – I…”

He gritted his teeth, falling silent.

Keith had a sudden violent, _visceral_ urge to rip Zarkon limb from limb. He fought it down, counted to ten, and then tried again. “Shiro, baby, _please_.”

Shiro always, _always_ came first. Revenge could wait.

Shiro opened his mouth to say something, but then his gaze caught on the arm, and he shut it again.

“Shirogane,” Pidge said from somewhere behind Keith.

Keith was just about to tell them to let him handle it when Shiro’s eyes widened in recognition, his attention completely focusing on Pidge. “You’re… Matt’s younger sibling.”

More than anything, the gender-neutral term was what convinced Keith that Shiro _knew_ Matt. Pidge dressed in combat fatigues’ colours, but ‘non-binary’ wasn’t going to be anyone’s first assumption, not unless they’d been _told_.

“You know my brother?” He’d never heard such a tone from Pidge before, careful hope and poorly-concealed anticipation all rolled into one.

Shiro grimaced minutely, the twitch in his micro-expression so small that Keith doubted any of his teammates could pick it up. “Yeah,” Shiro said. “Matt was our engineer.”

Keith caught the past tense in his words, a fraction of a second before Pidge’s voice cracked. “He… was?” they confirmed.

Shiro shook his head slowly. “Sorry, I don’t know what happened to him, he got transferred to another facility not long after we were captured.”

“Okay.” Pidge sucked in a breath, and somehow managed to stop their voice from completely breaking. “I’ll – just have to keep looking.”

Keith couldn’t even imagine what they must be feeling at the moment, but he understood their determination. If it were him, he wouldn’t give up either.

“Shiro,” he began, “what – happened to you?”

He could take Shiro home later. Right now, he was still Black Lion, still Team VOLTRON’s leader, and there were things they _needed_ to know from the first person they ever managed to rescue from Galra Inc.

Shiro shook his head silently.

Keith chewed on his lip. “Captain Shirogane,” he finally said. Shiro would understand.

Shiro opened his mouth, and then his brow furrowed. “ _Captain_?”

“Posthumous raise,” Keith said shortly. The new stripes were tucked away in a box at home, at the back of the closet with the rest of Shiro’s clothes, just another thing Keith could never bear to throw away.

Shiro was silent for a moment, but Keith could see his posture unconsciously straightening, switching from Takashi Shirogane to Captain Shirogane. “Galra Inc. is performing unsanctioned experiments on humans,” he began bluntly, his tone as bland as if he was giving a report to a superior.

Keith couldn’t help but flinch as Shiro continued his report, even though he’d known it, he’d _expected_ it. It was still a shock to hear Shiro speak about his captivity in a tone so bland he could’ve been talking about the weather, about the horrific experiments he’d been subjected to and the gladiator matches he’d been forced to battle in like they didn’t mean anything to him. It made his heart _ache_ to go to Shiro, but Shiro had made it very clear that he didn’t want anyone to touch him, and Keith would respect that choice even if he didn’t like it.

“Do you have any idea what they’re looking for?” Allura asked.

Shiro shook his head. “I can’t tell,” he said heavily. “At first I thought they were trying to engineer an enhanced army, with the way everyone’s Dominant instincts were going haywire in the arena, but later on I saw some of the survivors turning so Submissive it was like Galra Inc. flipped a personality switch somewhere. But that could be a response to our captivity, too…”

It was a well-documented fact that prolonged captivity tended to promote Submissive tendencies in anyone capable of displaying them, Keith knew from his military training. It was difficult for all except the most psychopathic captors, the ones who had no biological instincts to trip them up, to be as harsh on full Submissives.

He didn’t want to ask.

He didn’t want to know if that was how Shiro had broken.

“So Galra Inc. gave you this arm,” Pidge mused.

“Surely it must detach?” Allura wondered, coming closer, but not reaching out to touch Shiro. “Even the best metal can rust, and they must be able to fix the wear and tear the arm goes through…”

“It might,” Shiro agreed candidly, “but I don’t know how. They keep us sedated when they’re not running experiments.”

Keith couldn’t take it any longer. “Shiro,” he said, and waited until Shiro looked at him. “Let us help you. At least to get the arm off, if nothing else.”

A hint of unease flickered across Shiro’s face, but after a moment he deliberately made himself relax. “Okay,” he agreed quietly.

Keith slid closer, until his hip was brushing against Shiro’s good shoulder, as Shiro bore Pidge and Hunk’s examination with stoic detachment.

“Hey,” he murmured, catching Shiro’s attention and forcing him to turn away from Pidge and Hunk. “It’s good to have you back.”

Shiro exhaled, the first hint of a real smile flitting across his face.

“It’s good to be back.”

They sat in silence for a while, each lost in their own thoughts, until an exclamation from Pidge made everyone look up.

“I’ve got it,” Pidge said, holding up a few tools from where they’d been conferring with Hunk. “His arm is held in place by an electromagnet, so if I disrupt the electrical coil in the joint – _here_ –”

The arm whirred softly, gears grinding to a halt, and then detached with a heavy _clunk_.

Shiro gasped at the sudden weightlessness, overbalancing, and would’ve fallen backwards if he wasn’t already sitting down.

Pidge caught the mechanical prosthetic with a set of heavy-duty tongs, already muttering under their breath as they set it in a containment box hooked up to their analysis station. Keith shook his head, caught between fond exasperation and concern for Shiro.

“I’m taking the rest of the day off,” he announced, getting to his feet. Pidge would be otherwise occupied for a while yet, and Allura needed to check in with the national database. They didn’t need him here – not more than Shiro did, anyway.

Shiro was always going to come first.

Allura shot him a look, but whatever she saw on his face must’ve made her reconsider, for she said nothing when Keith offered Shiro a hand. Keith’s heart twisted painfully when Shiro stared at the appendage for a moment, like he was trying to remember what the gesture meant. Then the moment passed, and Shiro took Keith’s hand like it was just another day in the Galaxy Garrison, Keith offering Shiro a hand up after their usual sparring match.

Nobody else made a move to stop them on their way out.

[ ](https://twitter.com/voidslantern/status/1209552860557578241)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter earns this fic its Explicit rating, you have been warned.

Shiro perked up a little when Keith went off-road, dust and sand flying in their wake. They were pressed so close together on the hoverbike that Keith could faintly scent Shiro’s surprise as he looked around curiously, taking in the once-familiar sights.

“You… stayed.”

Keith nodded, parking neatly in the little landing strip outside their shack. “Yeah.”

_Shiro grinning broadly at him as he twirled the keyring around his finger. “It’s not much, but it’s home for now!”_

_They had planned to move, once Shiro had a few promotions under his belt and could requisition Keith as a wing-mate on his missions._

He blinked the memories away, switching off the ignition. Shiro needed little prompting to climb out of the hoverbike, but then he climbed onto one of the sand dunes instead of moving towards the shack. When Keith came up next to him, Shiro’s gaze was distant, like he was recalling something from his memories.

He didn’t jump when Keith laid a hand on his shoulder, but it was a near thing.

“I’m glad you’re back.”

“Yeah,” Shiro said, shoving his hand into the pocket of Keith’s hoodie, turning to head towards the shack. “It’s good to be back.”

Keith trailed behind him, circling out from behind him when Shiro got distracted exploring the shack. He tried not to look at what Shiro might see: the dismal furniture, the unused state of the kitchen that spoke of too many nights working late and eating out, the barrenness of the room in general.

“I don’t spend a lot of time here,” he explained, even though Shiro didn’t push for one. “I usually… the basement.”

Keith decided to shut up, and just hit the button instead to unlock the door to the basement.

“Wow,” Shiro marvelled as one of the bookshelves swung away to reveal a set of stairs leading downwards, “ _this_ is new.”

Keith shrugged, but he couldn’t really hide the pleased look on his face at the awed tone in Shiro’s voice. This was – this was everything he’d never dared to let himself dream of, of Shiro meandering through the intelligence office he’d set up in the basement of their shack, admiring all the high-tech equipment he’d hauled in, piece by piece, over the course of several months.

“You sleep down here too, huh.”

Keith nodded, although Shiro wasn’t looking at him. The answer to that question was fairly obvious: there was a Japanese futon laid out in the corner, well-worn unlike the rest of the furniture upstairs, and a phone charger lying on top of the pallet. Keith hadn’t used their actual bedroom for years. Hadn’t been able to bear to.

“The shower’s, uh, upstairs.”

Hearing the implied dismissal, Shiro withdrew up the stairs.

Alone at last, Keith gave in to the urge to sink to the floor, one hand buried in his hair, gripping it tightly.

Shiro was back. The one thing he’d scarcely dared to dream of, as the years trudged on and the chance of a successful rescue nosedived to insignificant levels, was now a reality – but this wasn’t the Shiro who left three years ago. This Shiro had gone through so much that he could never _be_ the Shiro from three years ago – he was a Switch with paradoxically submissive leanings yet a crazy-strong dominant command, who was jumpy and afraid of his own body the way the old Shiro had never been. And that wasn’t getting into the white streak in his hair, the muscled body he now inhabited, or the myriad other little things that were different in his appearance.

Keith sucked in a deep breath, held it for a four-count, and then let it out again.

He wasn’t the Keith from three years ago either, hot-headed and naively optimistic that nothing bad could ever happen to them. He’d seen things he couldn’t un-see either, been too late to save many of Galra Inc’s human experimentation victims, done things he wasn’t proud of…

But he still loved Shiro. And if Shiro still loved him back, then they could still make this relationship work.

Feeling slightly more settled, Keith got up and went over to the laundry chute. He didn’t wear the full Paladin armour home, of course, but VOLTRON was starting to become high-profile enough that Galra Inc. had a respectable bounty out on their heads, which meant mercenaries occasionally tried to get the drop on them, and it was just safer to wear his under-armour home for the protection. Unfortunately, its quality meant that Keith had to install a specialised sonic cleaner just to get it clean, since it was also too expensive for him to own multiple changes.

Hitting the button to start the cleaning cycle, Keith made his own way up the stairs. Hopefully Shiro was done with his shower, because they only had the one bathroom.

Luck was on his side, as Shiro came out of the bathroom just as Keith shut the secret door to the basement again.

“Hey, I borrowed your tow–” Shiro cut himself off halfway, mouth hanging open.

“Hm?” Keith fought the urge to fidget under Shiro’s weirdly-intense stare. He was dressed only in the tank top and underwear he usually wore beneath his under-armour, which made him look like a complete twig next to Shiro – more so than he ever used to, at any rate. It made him a little self-conscious.

Shiro shook his head, sending stray droplets of water flying everywhere. “Uh,” he stuttered uncharacteristically, “um, I was – oil?”

Keith blinked.

“I, uh, my arm, it’s metal, to clean –”

Keith shook his head, trying to make sense of Shiro’s garbled words. “You need to oil your prosthetic port because it’s made of metal?” he guessed.

Shiro nodded frantically, looking relieved.

“Will hoverbike engine oil do?” Keith finally asked, after a minute of wracking his brains. “There’s no other lubricant at home.” Well, except for cooking oil, but something that was designed to be a lubricant would probably work better.

Shiro blinked rapidly.

“You don’t have any lube?” he asked, and then slapped his hand over his mouth, looking mortified.

Keith stared back at him.

“What would I need that for?”

Did lubricant for sex work for prosthetic joints, in any case? Given the smell of engine oil, Keith could see why Shiro might prefer that, but he wasn’t sure if it would work as well. In any case, they were going to have to pick up some actual lubricant the next day.

“So you don’t, uh,” Shiro asked, looking like he couldn’t believe what was coming out of his mouth, and then he made a hand gesture that was more illuminating.

“Oh!” Keith rewound the conversation, his mind switching gears. “No, uh, shower water and, um, spit works fine?” He couldn’t figure out how they got onto this topic. Why was Shiro even thinking about sex –

He looked down at himself again, this time seeing the fact that he was dressed in nothing but a sweat-soaked tank top that clung to his torso and a pair of boxers.

“Uh. The oil’s in – in the workshop, I’ll get it for you?”

Shiro nodded, looking relieved. His gaze, unbidden, drifted down Keith’s body again, like he couldn’t help himself. Keith tried not to blush too hard, grabbing the can of oil and beckoning Shiro over to the workshop area so that the rest of the shack wouldn’t stink of oil. Shiro caught his hand while Keith was trying to pass the oil over, his grip tight enough that Keith couldn’t just slip free. “Will you –” he began hoarsely.

Keith tugged his hand free, keeping his voice firm. “I need a shower, and you need to take care of that first. We can discuss it after we’re done.”

He kept his shower perfunctory, scrubbing the soap through his hair as he tried not to think about anything in particular.

Shiro was putting the can of oil away when Keith came out of the bathroom, shaking the water droplets from his hair to make it dry faster. He barked a surprised laugh at the sight, the sound so familiar that it hit Keith like a punch to the gut.

Shiro’s grin cracked around the edges, turning into something more small and melancholic. “Keith, I don’t want to make you do anything you’re not comfortable with –” he began.

Keith was already shaking his head, swiping his damp hair away from his forehead. “No, Shiro, it’s okay. I’m not uncomfortable just because you seem to be… different.” It was a little strange, given the person Shiro had used to be – a Switch, yes, but with strong Dominant leanings that could give Keith a run for his money. The sex had been good, no matter what the dynamics purists liked to preach – Keith had loved the power struggle, and quite enjoyed being pinned down and pounded into the bed until he forgot his name now and then.

But Shiro had always been a Switch, which meant Keith had also dominated him before.

“Let me take care of you.”

Keith hadn’t realised how tense Shiro had been until he relaxed, his shoulders dropping, like he’d been _afraid_ Keith would turn him down. And that just wouldn’t do.

“The linens need changing,” he said, lilting his tone to make it more of an order instead of a request. At any other time Shiro might protest that Keith had two working arms to his one, and therefore should do it himself, but not this time. In fact, the alacrity with which Shiro responded to the command…

Well, it _had_ been three years since Shiro was last taken down.

They made short work of the bedsheets, something with a ridiculously high thread count that Shiro had bought just for the way it felt against bare skin, and Keith could tell by the nostalgic look in Shiro’s eyes that he remembered it too.

“Eyes on me,” he warned. Getting lost in his head wasn’t going to help Shiro any.

Shiro was still clad only nothing but a towel, same as Keith, which made it easy for Keith to gesture at him to sit on the bed naked. He took the towel that Shiro handed him, deliberately taking his time to fold them with regulation corners as tight as he could manage, like they were back at the Garrison expecting a dorm check at any moment, and then set the two towels down on the table.

When he turned around again, Keith caught Shiro staring at his ass.

Keith grinned, walking back towards the bed, turning his usual slouch into a swagger he’d learned from Lance a few missions back, enjoying the way Shiro couldn’t seem to keep his eyes on his face. He put a knee on the bed to balance himself, and then swung a leg over Shiro’s thighs, sitting down boldly in his lap.

Shiro’s eyes were wide when Keith put a hand on his chest and pressed him to lie down on the bed, leaning in for a kiss. Shiro’s eyes fell shut at the contact, his lips parting pliantly under Keith’s mouth, his arm coming up to clutch at Keith’s shoulder.

When Keith finally pulled away, Shiro whined a little at the loss of contact. The look in his eyes was hazy, like he was halfway under already, but it wasn’t enough.

Keith pressed his hand against Shiro’s chest when he made to chase after Keith’s mouth. “Just lie down,” he murmured, more for himself than Shiro, “Let me take care of you.” He wasn’t sure if Shiro had understood him, but he didn’t attempt to rise again.

He kept one hand on Shiro’s sternum just in case, the other coming down to pinch at one of Shiro’s nipples – gently at first, and then slightly harder, rolling the rapidly-hardening nub between his fingers.

Shiro’s hips _jerked_ when Keith repeated his ministrations to the other nipple, his cock slapping wetly against Keith’s thigh. He was already more than half-hard, Keith was pleased to note, precome beading prettily at the tip, the head flushed gorgeously pink.

“Keith, _please_ –”

Keith crooned wordlessly, and Shiro whimpered when Keith finally decided to take pity on him. He set an easy pace, ignoring the way Shiro’s hips twisted underneath him, seeking the friction Keith was not giving him.

“Hand above your head,” Keith ordered, and waited for Shiro to obey before he leaned down and _bit_ one of Shiro’s nipples. In the same motion he let go of Shiro’s cock, rolling off him – and not a moment too soon, for Shiro’s hips snapped upwards, spine arching like he was about to come.

“Hand,” Keith warned, and waited patiently for Shiro to realise he’d been given an implicit command.

Slowly, Shiro sank back down onto the bed, panting for breath, and then he reached up to grip the headboard with his arm.

“ _Very good_ ,” praised Keith, because his initiative was commendable. He pressed a hand against Shiro’s abdomen in an unvoiced order, shimmying up Shiro’s body until he could wrap his hands around both of their erections and jerk them off together.

“ _Keith_ ,” Shiro keened. He was beautiful like this, mouth hanging open and gasping for air, his hips making aborted little twitches like he was trying so hard to obey. “You’re killing me.”

“Shhh,” shushed Keith, “baby, you’re doing so well, just one more, can you try –”

He let go almost too late, the warning signs nearly non-existent, and Shiro’s back arched so hard Keith felt himself getting deadlifted off the bed.

“Down,” he snapped, letting a note of command slip into his voice, but he didn’t expect Shiro’s cock to jerk at his tone, sputtering precome like he was _desperate_ to come.

“Keith, I –” Shiro sucked in a deep breath, but what came out was a groan when Keith wriggled his way higher, giving Shiro a perfect view as he palmed his own cock and started jerking himself off, hard and fast. “ _Please_ ,” he gasped. “I can’t –”

With a low groan of satisfaction, Keith came all over Shiro’s chest, striping the broad pectorals with his come. He took a moment just to come down from his high, just to make Shiro sweat a little more. By the time Keith finally took a hold of Shiro’s cock, Shiro was rutting restlessly against his hip, so wet with precome that Keith hadn’t needed anything else to slick the way.

Shiro came with a ragged sob, hips shuddering one last time before falling still against the bed. He barely twitched when Keith got up to fetch a washcloth, his body loose and pliant under Keith’s ministrations. By the time Keith finished cleaning up and put everything away again, Shiro had fallen asleep, cuddling the pillow like a particularly large cat.

Keith tucked Shiro in securely, making sure his heartmate wasn’t exposed to the night chill. He too was tired, but habit made him reach over to his phone to check his messages before turning in for the night.

The VOLTRON group chat had been as active as usual, Hunk reminding everyone that he was making pancakes the next day, only to have the conversation hijacked by Pidge asking him about electrical wiring and several technicalities that flew over Keith’s head.

He opened the private message from Allura instead.

_Are you coming in tomorrow?_

Keith spun his phone, thinking.

Before today he wouldn’t have thought twice about agreeing, but his priorities were completely different now. He had spent too long searching for Shiro to willingly let him out of his sight right now, when everything happened so fast it was like he was living in a dream that he didn’t want to wake up from.

As though to prove him wrong, there was a soft contented rumble from beside him, like the purr of a cat, and Keith felt the stirrings of a smile tug at the corners of his mouth, something in his chest finally settling. They might be very different people now than they had been three years ago, but it seemed that some things had stayed the same.

_Yes, but Shiro’s coming with me._


	4. Chapter 4

Shiro’s eyes snapped open, nearly smashing his forehead into Keith’s when he sat bolt upright. The sight of his heartmate was so disorientating that it made him pause, and then –

Right. He was home.

“Sorry,” he grunted, unable to meet Keith’s worried gaze. He looked down at the sheets instead, his fingers curling in the soft cotton, and willed his heart rate to slow down.

“Don’t worry about it,” Keith replied, but he was still staring. A moment later, his gaze dropped, and then his hand came into view, tangling loosely around Shiro’s own. “Hey, look at me,” he said, squeezing Shiro’s fingers lightly.

Shiro lifted his gaze.

“We’ll get through this,” Keith told him, his tone as heavy as a promise. “You aren’t with Galra Inc. anymore. Pidge is a genius, they’ll be able to reverse-engineer your arm and give you an upgrade, and you – and we can figure this out. _Together_.”

He pressed their linked hands to his own chest, and then to Shiro’s.

“I love you,” Keith breathed, still holding Shiro’s gaze, and something swelled in Shiro’s chest like it _hurt_ , like the first breath of fresh air after a long, long time underwater.

“I love you too.”

Keith pressed their foreheads together in a rare gesture of affection, pulling Shiro into an embrace that made him stiffen at first. But Keith held on patiently, and eventually Shiro relaxed enough to hug Keith back awkwardly with one arm.

“So,” Keith began, pulling back, “I know this is not a great time, but I need to head to work soon.”

“Oh.” Shiro leaned back. “I, uh, I could hang around here, I guess.”

Keith was already shaking his head. “Don’t be ridiculous, there’s no food in the house, and I’m taking the hoverbike – you can just come with me.”

“Is that –” Shiro thought of top-secret operations, of classified secrets he could never tell Keith.

Keith gave a little shrug. “You’ve seen our HQ already, and maybe a fresh pair of eyes would help.”

He didn’t say he was worried about leaving Shiro alone at home, for which Shiro was grateful. He didn’t think he could handle it if Keith treated him like glass right now, even if there was an itch under his skin that was only tempered by the subdrop he just had the previous night, foreign and uncomfortable in all the ways he wasn’t used to.

Out loud he said, “Yeah, okay.”

Now that he was feeling a lot more settled, Shiro took the chance to take in the sights as Keith manoeuvred the hoverbike out of their driveway. They had bought the shack a ways from the nearest town centre, and Altea Corp.’s buildings were in the city proper, which meant an hour’s drive even at the souped-up speeds Keith’s heavily-modified hoverbike could get to when off-road.

Altea Corp. Now that was a name he hadn’t heard in a while.

It explained why Team VOLTRON was so heavily invested in unearthing all of Galra Inc.’s wrongdoings, however. Shiro had heard things down in the prisoners’ blocks, and a suspiciously high number of Altea Corp.’s workers had landed in the gladiator rings.

In the basement carpark, Keith pressed the button for the elevator and they started heading up, just like that.

“What, no access card, fingerprint lock, or retina scan?” Shiro joked. For a high-profile combat mission team, this was… surprisingly mundane.

Keith laughed, shaking his head. “Pidge has a system of security cameras strung around the whole block,” he explained. “We’ll get advanced warning if somebody so much as comes near this area, but my hoverbike’s distinctive enough that we’re automatically tagged as friendlies. Much easier than trying to work a scan with your hand or head all bandaged up.”

The elevator opened out to what resembled a living room, and for a moment Shiro thought they must’ve arrived at the wrong floor. But Keith was already walking out of the elevator, looking nonplussed like he did this every day, and so there was nothing to do but to scramble to follow.

“Keith!” One of the men Shiro saw yesterday poked his head out from another room, waving a spatula. “Good morning!” His eyebrows shot up a little when he caught sight of Shiro, but he didn’t do more than give a friendly little wave. “So, pancakes for two?”

Keith nodded, and then turned to Shiro. “That’s Hunk,” he introduced, before Shiro could ask. “He’s a really good cook. When we’re not in the field, he takes charge of our meals.”

It surprised Shiro a little, honestly. The Keith he’d known had been prickly in even the mildest social situation, brusque to the point of rudeness, and wouldn’t have been caught dead making small talk. Even during communal meals, Keith was usually found in a corner by himself, his eyes focused on his tray and ignoring whatever the rest of the table was chatting about.

It made him smile to see this Keith, who was clearly still awkward, but more relaxed around his team than Shiro had ever seen.

Breakfast was a stilted affair, the conversation stuttering in fits and starts every time someone remembered that there was a new person in their midst. Pidge was missing altogether, although Lance made some noise about bringing them their food later.

“So, Keith.”

Keith groaned, with a kind of exasperation Shiro had almost never heard from him before. “No.”

“Oh, come on!” the other man wheedled. He had introduced himself as Lance earlier, made a little hand-sign that indicated that he was the team’s sniper, and then cracked a joke about how he always scored when he shot. Shiro liked him already. Not many people could get under Keith’s skin like that.

“Spill the deets! How did you two meet? What did you used to do?” Lance insisted. He was either completely oblivious or knew very well that Keith was glaring at him out of embarrassment and not anger.

“You know he was Garrison Pararescue,” Keith muttered, folding his arms across his chest. “It was in his file yesterday.”

Lance was undeterred. “Yeah? Half his file’s blacked out, man, and anyway I’m not asking about his missions, I’m asking about _you_.” He mimed holding a microphone like a reporter. “Can this be? The notoriously reticent Black Lion finally opening up about his tragic past?”

Shiro shoved another forkful of pancake into his mouth, smirking slightly. Lance’s gaze flicked over to him, so fast that Shiro almost missed it, and Shiro’s estimation of Lance rose higher.

“We met at the Galaxy Garrison, actually,” Shiro interjected, just to see the look of comic betrayal Keith turned on him. “Keith was three years below me.”

Lance pumped his fist in the air, his grin widening.

Allura was nodding along. “Keith had just graduated top of his class when he accepted my invitation to lead the VOLTRON task force,” she added. “I was surprised, at first – he was being headhunted by multiple military organisations at the time, and I often wondered what made him pick this small paramilitary semi-voluntary group when we didn’t really have much to offer him, but now I understand.”

Keith dropped his head into his hands, but the set of his shoulders was more embarrassed than upset, and that made Shiro continue. “I’m not surprised. The first time he ever got into a flight simulator, he shattered the record.”

“By point zero six milliseconds!” Keith protested, taking his head out of his hands.

“No one else has even come close for three years,” Shiro retorted. He was _proud_ of that record. Only first-years got to fly that particular training simulation, and he’d been _so sure_ he had coaxed out the maximum speed of the aircraft by the end of the year that it had been jarring to see his name replaced.

By the slow, delighted smile spreading across Lance’s face, he had guessed where it was going. “So it was a rivals to friends to lovers thing?”

Shiro had to laugh at that. “Hardly that dramatic. I wanted to meet him, he didn’t mind getting some flying tips from me, and… well, one thing led to another and we got closer.” He was going to leave out their late-night sparring sessions in the gym, and the flutter in his chest whenever he managed to get Keith to yield. Those were memories best saved for private.

“So, uh, how did you end up a prisoner?”

Shiro’s gaze dropped to the table.

“It was supposed to be a regular escort mission,” Keith took up the conversation, and Shiro’s head snapped up in surprise. “Pidge hacked the Garrison’s servers after your whole convoy was declared KIA,” he explained tersely. “Escort one of Galra Inc.’s top secret military projects through potentially hostile territory, make the drop-off, and get out of there. A two-week job, at best.”

“Except they never made it back.”

“Pidge!” Hunk exclaimed, rising to his feet. He vanished into the kitchen, reappearing with a tower of pancakes nearly as big as Pidge’s head. “Here, you must be starving, did you even get any sleep last night?”

They shook their head. There were bruise-coloured bags beneath their eyes, but their gaze was as alert as ever. “No, but it’s fine. Thanks to the encryption installed in Shiro’s Galra Tech arm, I was able to crack their codes. I’m running a couple of programs right now to pull as many files from their servers as we can, then we’ll leak the files to the other agencies so that they’ll have no choice but to move in on Galra Inc. as well.” They held up a hand to stall Allura’s protests. “I took a quick look, it’s too big for us to handle alone. There were at least six locations linked via satellite to each other, so we’d have to hit all of them simultaneously, and we just don’t have the resources to do that ourselves.”

Pidge put their tablet down on the table, sinking into their seat. “Thanks Hunk,” they mumbled around a mouthful of pancake.

Allura took the tablet and began swiping through the documents, Keith and Lance leaning in for a better look on either side of her. Shiro too leaned over, but all he managed to catch was the header.

PROJECT KERBEROS

It was definitely the name of the top-secret project they had been escorting back then, the reason why their mission had been named Operation: KERBEROS.

Keith put a hand on his shoulder, resting it lightly on the joint. Shiro was very glad for that point of contact now, for the way it grounded him, reminded him that he wasn’t back there in the desert, out-manoeuvred at every turn, starved and dehydrated until they grew too weak to resist capture.

And it wasn’t going to happen to Keith, either, nor anyone else again if Shiro had anything to say about it.

“My father was right,” Allura gripped the tablet so tightly that her knuckles turned white. “This research… Galra Inc. has been committing crimes against humanity for a decade, maybe more.” She set the tablet down gently on the table, leaning back in her chair to gaze up at the ceiling. “My father, Director Alfor, had always suspected Galra Inc. was engaging in criminal activity, but without proof the governmental agencies were limited by bureaucracy in their scope of investigation. He put together the VOLTRON task force and funded it with his own money for this one reason alone.” She smiled bitterly. “I’ve always wondered if Director Zarkon had a hand in my father’s suspiciously timely death and the swift incorporation of Altea Corp. into Galra Inc., and I guess… I was right.”

“Allura…” Lance hovered by her shoulder, his eyes darting over to meet Keith’s gaze. They exchanged some wordless communication Shiro couldn’t begin to interpret, and then Lance nodded decisively. “Come on, Princess, let’s go review these files, and then we can start coordinating with the agencies to take down all the Galra strongholds, yeah?”

Once Allura had been escorted away, Shiro turned to Keith. “Princess?”

“Oh.” Keith, who had been flicking through the documents himself, set the tablet down. “She’s the heiress of a multinational corporation; we used to joke that she was daddy’s little princess.” He grimaced slightly. “Until Director Alfor passed away, yeah.”

“By the way,” Pidge interjected, swallowing another large bite. “I just remembered, Shiro, I also built you a new arm. _Without_ the Galra Tech remote-controlled electrical shock module and with better nerve connectivity so that it’s less painful to use, yup.” They twirled their fork, gesturing. “It’s on my workbench, Keith, can you go grab it for me?”

Keith returned with something that definitely didn’t look anything like what Shiro had been expecting, that was for sure. “You mean… this thing?” Keith asked uncertainly, hefting the two pieces of… whatever that was. “Pidge, did you run out of materials for his arm or something?” It certainly looked that way, with one piece resembling a shoulder joint and another piece resembling a hand plus forearm, but everything else from the elbow upwards was missing.

“Nope!” Pidge hopped off their chair, taking the piece that looked like a shoulder from Keith and turning it over to show them the flared base. “See here, there’s a – well, we’ll call it a powerful magnet, to put it in layman’s terms – that’ll connect it to the other part on the forearm there – you see, this makes the arm half as heavy as it should be, while not compromising on its durability. _And_ you’d be able to extend it out up to a range of ten metres, as long as it’s within direct line-of-sight!” They beamed proudly, holding the shoulder piece out for Shiro’s inspection.

Shiro took it automatically, and indeed, it was far lighter than his Galra Tech arm had been.

“Thanks, Pidge,” Keith murmured, when it became obvious that Shiro was too overwhelmed to say anything.

Pidge grinned, their face lighting up like Matt’s used to do whenever he talked about his little sibling, and Shiro swallowed. “C’mon, let’s get you to my lab and you can try it on. Keith can help Hunk with the dishes.”

Half an hour later, Shiro emerged from the depths of Pidge’s lab, feeling like a totally new man. The pins-and-needles sensation, which Pidge had assured him was just a normal temporary side-effect of the prosthetic connecting to his nerves, was finally fading – and he had finally stopped tilting alarmingly every time he walked to compensate for a weight that was no longer there.

Pidge had laughed when he toppled face-first off the bench.

Maybe he’d ask Keith for a spar later, now that he was sure his prosthetic arm wouldn’t have any nasty surprises hidden within, wouldn’t force Shiro to hurt his heartmate. It could be just like the old times.

Pidge led him through another array of corridors and up several flights of stairs before Shiro found himself back in the office area he had been in the previous day.

Allura was splitting her attention between four screens at her workstation, two keyboards balanced precariously on the edge of her desk and her mouse clicking away furiously. “Most of the agencies have replied, they’re assembling strike teams as we speak,” she announced by way of greeting. “We’ll be headed out within 48 hours. VOLTRON is taking point at Galra Inc.’s main base of operations, listed in the files Pidge got. We’re expected to encounter Director Zarkon and Chief Scientist Haggar, along with a substantial number of the prisoners.”

She looked up briefly, sending Pidge a tiny smile. “With any luck, your family might be there.”

Pidge gave her a wobbly smile in return, and then pulled their steely determination back around them like a cloak. “Thanks, Allura.”

Shiro withdrew quietly when Pidge turned to their own workstation, which was somehow even more cluttered than Allura’s, code scrolling away on one of the monitors so fast that it frankly made him a little dizzy to look at it. Keith, he was glad to find, had a sensible setup of only one keyboard and two monitors.

“Hey,” Keith greeted as Shiro pulled up a chair. Unlike Allura and Pidge, he didn’t seem to be so busy that Shiro was afraid of interrupting something.

“Allura is our external liaison,” Keith explained when Shiro asked, “and Pidge is our technical expert, so they’re busy coordinating everything with all the other agencies right now. I’m just the field commander, but Pidge has yet to decode the files with the blueprints and other relevant details, so there’s not much for me to do right now.”

Now that Shiro was looking at his monitors more closely, he could see that Keith had been idly jotting down notes on a copy of the guard rotations on one screen, but then he had also pulled up a copy of the decrypted documents for Project Kerberos on the other, and it was evident which one held more of his attention at the moment.

Keith shot Shiro a look when he leaned closer to that screen for a better, but he didn’t say anything, to which Shiro was grateful. He wanted – no, he _needed_ to know what Galra Inc. had been after, why they had done… all this… to him, what he lost three years _for_.

“They were,” Shiro cleared his throat, and then again when his voice didn’t seem to want to work right. “Haggar was experimenting on Switches because she wanted to figure out the molecular basis behind their ability to switch between Dominant/Submissive tendencies, to develop a serum that could, what, _mass-produce_ Dominant soldiers for the military, or Submissive harems for the depraved? That’s it?”

That was the reason why he and countless others had been thrown into the gladiator rings, had been subjected to round after round of gruelling tests, had their blood drained on a regular basis? So that some rich asshole could either buy himself a platoon of Dominant mercenaries, or a harem of Submissives?

“Hey. Hey, Shiro!”

It took him a few moments to realise that Keith was calling his name, and that was only because Keith had begun nudging him insistently. By the frantic look in his eyes, Keith was a hair’s breadth away from resorting to more drastic measures.

Shiro inhaled, held his breath to a count of four, and then exhaled again.

“You okay?” Keith pressed. He had slipped out of his seat and was crouched in front of Shiro’s chair, his fingers digging into Shiro’s thighs.

“Y-yeah. Maybe.” Shiro shrugged. He wasn’t sure how to put it into words. It wasn’t _bad_ , he didn’t think, but he wasn’t exactly entirely all right either.

“Whatever you need, Shiro,” coaxed Keith, the cadence of his voice dropping into something more soothing, and that was new enough that it startled Shiro out of whatever headspace he’d been slipping into. Keith was treating him… he was acting like a Submissive?

Now that he was actively thinking about it, Shiro could tell that it wasn’t a wrong assumption to make. Maybe most people would have known what they needed intuitively, but they were born that way. They weren’t Submissive because a mad scientist had injected them with a chemical cocktail for three years to see if she could make them something they were not.

“Shiro, breathe.” The hint of command in Keith’s tone pressed at Shiro’s diaphragm, even as his mind raced to catch up with this new revelation. Keith hadn’t seemed to mind when Shiro was all but plastered to his back like a full-blown Submissive the previous day, and, well, he certainly didn’t seem to have minded taking Shiro down either.

Shiro exhaled slowly. This was a lot harder when he was actually in control of himself, he mused as he slipped out of his chair and onto the floor, trying not to wince at the cold hard floor. He wasn’t going to stay down for long, he told himself.

Wide-eyed, Keith sat back down, one hand coming up to cradle the back of Shiro’s head when Shiro knee-walked forwards to lay his head down in his lap. Tentatively, he ran his fingers through Shiro’s close-cropped hair.

Shiro shut his eyes and let himself be lulled into a state of relaxation, almost subspace but not quite. He could still hear everything going on around him, still pay attention if he wanted to, but everything just seemed to be… less important, all of a sudden.

Keith wasn’t busy, he reminded himself. Until Pidge arrived with the rest of the data, he could just stay like that for a little while.


	5. Chapter 5

“Paladins,” Allura announced. “It’s time.”

Amidst the general hullabaloo that was five people attempting to shut down their workstations and retrieve their necessities, Shiro turned to Keith.

“I’m coming with you.”

Keith startled. “What?”

“Absolutely not.” This was Allura, who was just near enough to hear their exchange. “We don’t even know what Galra Inc. did to you, if there’s a way to switch your Submissive tendencies artificially on – we cannot afford that liability!”

The room was abruptly silent, and Shiro found himself the centre of attention.

“I’m fine,” Shiro argued. He had spent nearly the whole day sitting on the floor, lulled into a state of near-subdrop, and he was about as settled as he could possibly be. “They don’t have anything like that.” At least, they never showed any sign of having a master kill switch during the prisoner riots and the infrequent breakout attempts, preferring to subdue them with sleeping gas instead.

Keith was frowning, but not in a way that said he had already made up his mind.

“I know the access codes to some of the areas, Galra Inc. used to shuttle us between bases, and all their codes are the same,” Shiro argued. “Plus I memorised the guard rotation schedules in case I ever get a chance to break out, the prisoners already know me and would trust me more, and there’s a resistance group amongst Galra Inc.’s scientists and guards and you don’t know any of them.”

That gave them pause.

“Some of Galra Inc.’s own employees are working against the company?” Allura asked incredulously.

Shiro nodded, thinking of Ulaz, the scientist who always tried to smuggle him food that wasn’t just tasteless ration bars or bland slop. “Yes, they call themselves the Blades of Marmora. In some ways, the researchers and the guards are just as trapped as we are – after they get inducted into the top-secret programmes, they’re not allowed to resign. The only way out is death, same as us.”

Keith made a noise of understanding. “How many of these Blades would you say there are?” He tapped the guard rosters thoughtfully. “If we could meet with less resistance than what this shows, or get one of them to take us through the service tunnels…”

Shiro shook his head regretfully. “I couldn’t begin to say, I only knew of a few of them. They operate in small separate cells,” he explained, “so that even if an individual member is caught, the damage can be limited.”

He turned imploringly to Keith. “Keith, please, I need this.” _I need closure_ , he didn’t add, but he knew that Keith heard him anyway.

“Very well then,” Keith agreed reluctantly. “Shiro, I’ll take you to the armoury first, see if we can get you suited up.”

Both of them pretended not to hear Lance whisper _Whipped_ under his breath as they passed.

The VOLTRON task force armoury was as well-equipped as the military ones he was used to, Shiro was pleased to note, just on a much smaller scale since there were only five of them.

“We each have a backup suit in case our primary is cracked beyond repair,” Keith explained, leading him to the far end of the armoury, ignoring the suits hanging in their cases. He opened the massive wardrobe-like contraption to reveal additional VOLTRON armoured suits, unadorned by the coloured stripes Shiro could see on their designated suits.

“You’re not going to fit into anything of Pidge’s,” Keith mused, running a critical eye down Shiro’s body. “Hunk is more your torso size, but maybe Lance’s leg armour, and my helmet…”

Ten minutes later, Shiro was standing in a mish-mash of armour pieces. He made a few lunges, swivelling his body and marching from one end to the other to test his range of motion. “I’ll take this,” he finally decided.

Keith nodded in approval. By then, the rest of the team had also assembled in the armoury and were busy putting on their own suits.

“Right, so I’m the leader of VOLTRON, call sign Black Lion,” Keith pointed at his own armour, which was helpfully emblazoned with stripes of black over the white casing. “Lance is our sniper, call sign Red Lion. Pidge is our communications and tech guy, call sign Green Lion. Allura is our close-combat expert, call sign Blue Lion. Hunk is our demolitions expert, call sign Yellow Lion.” He gestured at the other team members in turn, each of them waving a hand back. “Given the nature of our mission this time, we can probably do with a search-and-rescue operative. Shiro, you’ll be known as White Lion.”

Shiro shouldn’t have been surprised that Keith remembered the specialised training he had gone through previously, but warmth bloomed through his chest anyway.

“Allura, you’re taking point with me today,” Keith directed. “Pidge and Hunk, you two guard our rear. Lance, you guard the middle with Shiro. Stay within sight of each other. Remember – if we do this right, we’ll net the whole of Galra Inc. in one go, and Zarkon and Haggar will have to answer for their crimes.” He held out a fist for a team huddle. “Let’s do this.”

\-----

“It doesn’t look like an evil hideout to me,” Lance mused, peering out of the window, binoculars in hand. They had set off the previous day, so that they could get in a proper stretch of downtime in a nearby hotel before the joint mission was due to start, and were now rolling across the stretch of expressway that bordered the research facility which their intel had indicated Zarkon and Haggar were supposed to be at. “It just looks like a bunch of generic buildings covered by some reeeeally excessive electrified fencing plastered with Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted signs.”

Without looking up from their tablet, Pidge whacked Lance on the shoulder.

“Hey!”

“It’s a top-secret research facility by one of the biggest multinational corporations, with military contracts – it’s _supposed_ to look like that.” Pidge rolled their eyes, setting the tablet down so that everyone sitting in the back of their armoured van could lean over and see. “Here, I just hacked into the nearest satellites, every red dot is an armoured mercenary.”

Keith leaned closer. “That’s a lot of red,” he commented, his voice carefully neutral.

“Yeah,” Pidge agreed unhappily. “We’re going to need some kind of distraction.”

Allura scrolled through her phone. “One of the other agencies assigned to this location will be handling that,” she reported. “We’ll just standby for now.”

Hunk turned the van off-road at a safe distance away, when they could no longer see even the fence, and drove another few kilometres into the desert until Pidge indicated that they were as close to the research facility as they could get without being spotted. Shiro and Keith dragged the camouflage tarp over the van while Pidge scanned through the satellite images again, mapping out their current location and the best way to the facility.

“Okay, so the detonator’s set to go off _here_ and _here_ ,” they mused, cross-referencing the coordinates on Allura’s phone with their map, marking down the two locations on the other end of the compound, “which should draw the attention of all of these guards in this area –” another circle, and a pinch to zoom in “– which would then leave _this_ entrance unguarded for long enough for us to slip in.” They traced a squiggly line from VOLTRON’s current location to the entrance. “Now, we just need to avoid the outer perimeter guards, who will come through _here_ , and the patrol drones due to pass by over _here_. Everybody got that?”

There was a series of nods. Pidge tucked the tablet away securely, turning to face the direction of the research facility.

“T minus five minutes,” Allura warned, zipping her phone into her vest pocket as well.

They trooped forwards to the edge of the electric fence. The next patrol was only due to round the corner in another ten minutes, leaving them with plenty of time to get out of there unseen.

Right on cue, something exploded on the far side of the facility, sending a billowing mushroom cloud into the air so high no one could possibly miss it. It was simply unfortunate that they couldn’t rely on Galra Inc.’s mercenaries to be so undisciplined as to all rush for the incident, leaving the rest of the facility unguarded.

As though he could sense the anxiety roiling in Shiro’s gut, Keith gave him a jaunty little wave. “See you on the other side,” he quipped, and then took a running leap for the electric fence. The jet repulsors built into his combat boots activated at the last possible moment, sending him flying over the fence and safely onto the other side.

“Oh man. _Oh man_ ,” Hunk chanted under his breath nervously, but he took a deep breath and jumped anyway.

“Have a little trust, Yellow!” Pidge complained softly, landing in the sand next to Hunk. They tapped at the heavy-duty watch on their wrist to activate a miniature holographic projection of the area, with team VOLTRON marked by a tight cluster of six green dots and nearby enemies by red dots. “These repulsors were _designed_ to take twice your weight! With the armour on!”

“Quiet,” warned Keith, and Hunk huffed to show his scepticism instead of retorting.

They made it to the entrance without incident, thanks to Pidge’s hacked live satellite feed and whispered instructions to stop whenever a patrol was passing by.

“A four-digit keypad,” they muttered in disgust, pushing to the front when Allura signalled the all-clear. “Not even biometrics – this will be easy.”

“I see movement,” Lance reported tersely, the scope of his rifle trained on where the explosion had come from.

“Got it,” Pidge hissed in triumph, wrenching the door open at a nod from Keith. They quickly made their way in, shutting the door again behind them to give the illusion of normalcy. Lance dropped back to the centre of the team, his bayard shifting from a long-ranged sniper rifle into something more suitable for indoors combat.

The others too drew their bayards, and Shiro readied his detachable arm in lieu of a weapon. Pidge had promised him ten metres of line-of-sight, and he had no reason to doubt that.

“The prisoners are held this way,” whispered Keith, turning down one of the corridors. “Our primary goal is to get to the prisoner block and free as many as we can before the alarm gets raised and they start killing them off.”

“Incoming,” Pidge warned tightly from behind them.

Shiro swallowed, but there was no time to apologise, no way of reassuring Pidge that they would make it without making it sound patronising. The six of them backed into one of the supply closets lining the corridors, listening to the heavy footsteps as the guards marched by, oblivious to the intruders in their midst.

The prisoners were locked behind a heavy metal gate that made Shiro’s heartrate tick up a notch just to see it, flashes of the past three years overlaying with the present. He shoved them away stubbornly, tapping in the four-digit code he could remember in his sleep.

The door beeped warningly, the indicator light flashing red.

ACCESS DENIED.

“What?” Shiro couldn’t help but say, completely thrown. “That has always been –”

“Who are you?” A harsh voice demanded from behind them.

All of them spun around, and Shiro heard the sound of Lance’s gun charging up before his memories kicked in and reminded him why the scientist standing at the end of the corridor was so familiar –

“Wait!” he shouted, grabbing Lance’s gun with his prosthetic arm and jerking it upwards to fire harmlessly into the ceiling. “Wait, I know him!”

The scientist frowned at the sound of his voice, holding up both arms in a gesture of surrender. “ _Champion_?” he demanded incredulously.

“Yeah,” Shiro agreed, ignoring the way Keith looked askance at him. “Ulaz, it’s me.”

There was a long, terrible pause.

“I am glad that you survived,” Ulaz finally said, with no particular intonation. His hands were still raised carefully.

“This is one of the Blades you mentioned?” Allura asked tightly.

“Yeah.” Feeling that it was probably safe now, Shiro let go of Lance’s gun. “This is Ulaz. He’s… he’s the reason your team found me alive.”

Ulaz was a meticulous scientist – he wouldn’t have made a mistake with the dosage.

He was gratified when Keith lowered his sword almost immediately, waving at the team to stand down. “I am Black Lion, leader of Team VOLTRON,” he introduced himself, gesturing at the rest of them. “We are part of a joint effort by eight agencies to take down Galra Inc.; we will appreciate any inside help you can give.”

Ulaz gave a nod, slowly putting his hands down. “My communicator is in my pocket,” he declared, and waited for Keith to nod before reaching for it. “Code Purple,” he said into the communicator. “To all agents: the time has come.”

Huh. Shiro hadn’t realised that Ulaz was such a high-ranking Blade that he could give orders.

Putting the communicator away, Ulaz turned to them. “Director Zarkon has a private helicopter parked in an airstrip on the opposite side of the main hangar, not marked on the blueprints,” he said urgently, “The Marmora have a plan in place to rescue all the prisoners, but you have to stop Zarkon and Haggar from getting away.”

“No!” Pidge burst out, shoving their way forwards. “Ke – _Black_ , please, we’re already here –”

Ulaz eyed Pidge, and then walked forwards to unlock the keypad. “I cannot force you to trust us,” he agreed candidly as the metal gates slid open with a horrific screech, “but you can see for yourselves. I do not believe six of you is enough to rescue all the prisoners before the alarms start. And if Zarkon and Haggar are not caught red-handed, they can simply claim to be ignorant of all of this and all our work will have been for nothing.”

Ulaz was right, but… Shiro said nothing as Pidge hurried through the open gate, and then followed them inside. If it had been Keith who was missing, he didn’t think he could’ve walked away either, logic be damned – so how could he fault Pidge for it?

He almost ran into Pidge’s back, and Shiro was just about to ask Pidge why they had stopped so suddenly when he registered what his eyes were seeing.

The place was _massive_.

As the Champion of the Arena and in possession of a Galra Tech arm, Shiro was normally kept in a separate wing whenever he was transferred to this base for the final gladiator rounds, and he hadn’t actually seen the main prisoner block here before. He… there must be… hundreds of cells in here, if not _thousands_.

“Dad?” screamed Pidge. “ _Matt_?!”

Their voice sounded reedy in the cavernous space, drowned out by the sheer cacophony that was hundreds of prisoners yelling and screaming at the same time, and the klaxons of alarms blaring as somebody finally realised there were intruders on base.

Pidge’s shoulders shook violently, almost like they were about to cry, before pulling themselves back together. When they turned around to face Ulaz again, there was a grimly determined spark in their eyes. “Lead the way.”

With a guide this time, they were able to take the lesser-known passageways, ducking and weaving through the corridors until they emerged in what was unmistakeably a small hangar. Shiro frowned up at the helicopter sitting on the helipad, the closed sunroof high above them, and the lack of guards in the area.

“Doesn’t look like Zarkon’s coming at all,” Keith commented, his mouth pressed into a grim line as he surveyed the area.

“This cannot be.” Ulaz too stopped, his brows furrowed in confusion. “Up until now, Zarkon has always been the first to evacuate, unless –”

He spun around suddenly, pulling out a gun from his own pocket. A moment later, Shiro too caught the sound of running footsteps, but there was nowhere to hide. Keith waved at them to fan out to give their opponents less of a target.

Three guards raced into the hangar, guns already poised to shoot.

“Halt!” One of them shouted. Shiro tensed, readying his arm to block –

“Don’t shoot!” Ulaz shouted back, right before the guard in the middle shot his other two compatriots in the back and dropped his own gun on the floor, raising his hands like Ulaz had done. “Kolivan,” Ulaz called, sounding strangely relieved. “The takeover is successful, then?”

“Yes.” Kolivan inclined his head, but he looked grave. “We have taken over the main control room, and they are evacuating the prisoners as we speak – but there is a problem.”

“I know,” Ulaz replied. “Zarkon has not deemed it necessary to evacuate, which means –”

“He was last seen entering Haggar’s lab when the alarms first went up,” Kolivan said cryptically.

Ulaz sucked in a breath. “Then we must hurry,” he said, shoulders drawing up into a tense line as he began to move. “If Haggar has completed it –”

“What is going on?” demanded Keith, but he was already waving the rest of team VOLTRON to start jogging, heading to wherever Ulaz and Kolivan were rushing off to.

“There is no time, they must still be in Haggar’s lab – follow me!”

Shiro pressed his lips into a grim line as he ran alongside the rest of the team, headed towards Haggar’s lab, stealth all but forgotten in favour of haste. The klaxons were finally silenced, but the corridors were deserted and lit only by the emergency lights, lending an eerie air to the situation. In the deafening silence, he could hear his own heartbeat, pounding in time with their footsteps.

_One, two. One, two._

Something was up ahead. He could feel it.

 _One, two_ –

Kolivan slammed the door to Haggar’s personal labs open.

Shiro blinked himself back to consciousness, and only then did he realise the high-pitched keening noise of distress ringing in his ears had been coming from _him_.

Wait, if he was –

He forced himself to take a deep breath in, and then exhaled just as slowly.

_Patience yielded focus._

He needed to focus, especially if –

Hunk was curled in a foetal position against one of the walls, his bayard on the floor, his hands over his ears as he rocked himself, crying softly. Lance was half-shielding him, but he didn’t seem to be doing much better – his arms were trembling so hard that he couldn’t even raise his gun, much less point it at Zarkon.

Keith was the only one of them who was on his feet, but even he was shaking with the amount of effort it took. Still, he limped towards Zarkon, bayard raised and teeth clenched so hard Shiro could see the trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth where he’d bitten himself.

“Get lost,” snapped Director Zarkon, almost lazily.

It wasn’t even directed at him, but Shiro felt the impact anyway, like an explosion had gone off in the centre of the room and he was caught in the aftershock. Keith cried out as he was thrown across the room and straight into a wall, but he was staggering to his feet even as Shiro watched, barely able to process what he was seeing.

Keith was one of the most headstrong Dominants Shiro had ever met, pure defiance wrapped up in a lithe package, but that half-hearted command had just tossed around like he was a rag doll. Hunk, the only one of them who was a full Submissive, was completely out of commission. It was like Zarkon had suddenly turned into an Ultra-Dominant or something.

Project Kerberos. Artificially inducing Dominance or Submissive tendencies. Ulaz’s pale face when he urged them to hurry before it was too late.

Haggar must have completed the serum.

A crash coming from beyond the door, followed by the sound of shattering glass, alerted him to the fact that there was more than one fight going on. Another glance around the room told him that no, there were four people missing – Allura, Pidge, Ulaz and Kolivan.

Which had to mean Haggar was next door – did she inject herself with the serum as well?

Keith screamed, a thin reedy noise torn out of his throat as he was flung into a metal table, crumpling into a heap on the floor, and Shiro was shaking so hard he couldn’t even see straight.

“ _Stop_ ,” he snarled, digging deep into himself, calling up strength he didn’t even know he had. If Zarkon had – but Shiro had received part of the serum too, inferior as it were –

Zarkon shook his head, barely looking mildly inconvenienced, and began walking towards Keith.

He had to – Keith was coughing weakly, and in no shape to get up – “I said, **_STOP!_** ”

Shiro burst into a fit of coughs right after, his throat screaming with pain, but through the watering of his eyes he saw that Zarkon had halted in his tracks. The tile under his feet had cracks running through it, but Zarkon himself didn’t seem to have suffered any damage, like the strongest command Shiro had ever managed in his life had been nothing more than a mosquito bite.

Shiro bit his lip. At least he had forced Zarkon’s attention away from Keith, giving him a bit more time to recover –

A terrifying war-cry and a blur in the corner of his eye was the only warning Shiro got when something – no, _someone_ leapt onto Zarkon, followed by a tremendous clunk of something heavy against bone that made Shiro wince instinctively.

The blur resolved into Lance, who was panting, his legs trembling like it was taking all his strength to keep standing. Hunk’s hand cannon was lying on the floor at his feet, and even from so far away Shiro could see cracks running over the surface like spiderwebs. He would be more impressed by how Lance had apparently managed to destroy reinforced metal, but –

Shiro activated the repulsors built into the base of his detachable arm and launched it through the space between them like a rocket, slamming his fist into Zarkon’s face just as Keith rose from behind Zarkon like an avenging angel and brought the flat of his own blade crashing down on Zarkon’s head.

Like an emperor fallen from grace, Zarkon toppled over.

“Holy crap,” Lance mumbled, his legs giving out. He tried to scoot away from Zarkon on his butt, but his legs weren’t coordinating enough to get him very far. “ _Oh my god_.” His voice rose, like he was half a second away from turning hysterical. “What the – what was _that_?”

“That,” Ulaz said heavily, pushing the connecting door open, “was Project Kerberos.”

He looked just as beat up as them, Shiro noted, but Allura was hauling Chief Scientist Haggar into the room, tied up securely with carbon-reinforced polymer wires from Pidge’s bayard. Her hair was matted with blood, suggesting that she was sporting a head wound somewhere, but her steps were steady and she was managing to walk in a straight line. Pidge limped in behind Kolivan, head buried in another holographic display. From the names scrolling down the screen, Shiro guessed that it was a prisoner list.

“I called for extraction,” Allura said by way of greeting, flopping down beside Shiro.

“Stay awake,” Shiro warned, checking her pupils to see if they were the same size. One could never be too cautious with a head wound. She sighed, defeated, and then looked up when Keith flopped down on Shiro’s other side, having towed Hunk over. Lance too was making his way over, stumbling and tripping over nothing like a drunk sailor on dry land, while Kolivan bent down and began tying up Zarkon’s unconscious body up.

“Hospital for everyone,” Keith mumbled, but his voice was muffled into Shiro’s shoulder.

“And then we go home,” Shiro agreed, leaning his head against Keith’s.

Home sounded good.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Discord](https://discord.gg/8yJVmbD) | [Tumblr](http://starriewolf.tumblr.com)


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